


Three

by jenna_thorn



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 19:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie / Claire kiss, written very early in season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three

_It was just a kiss, not even a kiss with tongue, just a brush of lips over his and it surely didn't mean what he wanted it to mean._

She shouldn't have done it – given into an impulse that belied her current state – her current incarnation as beached whale. But she saw Shannon, lounging about in a bikini and even if she couldn't admit to anyone else on this island, anyone else on this earth, that she saw her, she did. And she pressed against her skin, willing the stretch marks to, if not go away, then at least itch _less_ because scratching made them worse, she knew that and so she'd hold her own hands, wrap them around her legs, play with the edge of her skirt and yet she woke up scratching, red lines marking where her fingernails had dug in when she was weak, as she slept.

 _She'd said already that she didn't need a man, that her child would have a mother and that was enough and he was stupid to even think of her as anything but a friend, one he wouldn't have even been able to meet if they hadn't happened to be on the same plane, hadn't happened to both survive, by luck, by pure chance._

She ached for Nina's quiet voice over the twin's shrieking and she longed for carrots glazed with butter and she wanted her mommy in a general way that had very little relation to how she actually felt about her own mother and she wanted Charlie back here and not somewhere else with wide eyes and stuttering and trying to figure out how to tell her that he was just being nice.

 _It wasn't like there weren't men on the island, real men, not undersized has beens, one-shot wonders, pathetic nothings with sand in their shorts and what? What with the erection now? Bad cock, bad dick, completely inappropriate. Go away._

She was so lonely she ached and her heart hurt and areas decidedly below her heart didn't exactly hurt and the books tell you about "enhanced blood flow" and "hormonal fluctuation" but they don't warn you about leaning up, just a little and kissing someone who is right now, at this moment, hiding from her and wishing … she had no idea what. But it probably involved a bikini. And not a beached whale.

 _He's never been brave, just as he's never been tall, or broad shouldered or anything particularly masculine and so she was thinking of him as a confidante, that was it. That was a girl kiss, not a girlfriend kiss, but a kiss that girls give girls when they met for lunch and drank tea and ate lemon bars. So all he had to do was go back just as soon as his pants fit again, and they could go back to being girlfriends because really that was what she needed more than he needed, well, anything involving **anything** below the waist, so you could just shut up about it already and go back down. Now._

If he came back now how could she ever apologize enough? She couldn't chase him over the island, but it wasn't as though she could exactly avoid him either. Forty six people do not a big city mentality make and besides she knew them, knew each of them, had talked and touched each of them and there was one, only one, who had held her hand in return and now she'd spooked him, with her headstrong impetuous kiss and her bulging belly.

 _Yes, then, now that everyone was civilized and not being stupid, he could go and be a friend and helpful and as non-threatening as he always was. And think about cold showers and rotting meat and possibly Mrs. Caine and her sagging stockings. Wow, ten years later and that still works._

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Uh."

"Yeah."

"Um, sorry."

"For?"

"Well, you know."

"Me, too."

"What?"

"What, what?"

"No, Charlie. What precisely are you sorry for?"

"Well, you know," he started, but crossed arms and a raised eyebrow said she didn't. "For being, um, presumptuous."

"I kissed you."

"Well, yeah, but in a lemon bar way."

"Charlie, either you need to come down here or you need to help me up." She held her hand up but he dropped to his knees beside her. "Do you want to come closer?" He leaned forward until their noses bumped and he smiled, a one sided grin. "Why did you walk away?"

His grin vanished and he leaned back, but she caught one arm. He said, "Because I…you…um…" trailing off as she took his hand in hers. "Um…oh. I think perhaps I've been really, incredibly stupid." He slid his free arm around her waist and molded himself around her, gentle but solid. Their second kiss was only slightly less chaste than the first, a tentative press of lips, hesitant.

"Charlie?"

"Uh huh?"

"What's a lemon bar kind of kiss?"

"Not like this."

Their third kiss was not chaste at all.


End file.
